SRI LANKA’S highways minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle and at least 11 others have been killed when a suspected Tamil Tiger suicide attacker bombed at the opening ceremony of a marathon outside Colombo on Sunday morning.

  

The incident blamed by the government on the Tamil Tigers occurred at the western district of Grampaha, about 25 kms from the capital Colombo, where Minister of Highways and Road Development, Jeyaraj Fernandopulle, was attending a function to mark the Sinhala and Tamil New Year.

 

Fernandopulle, a vocal critic of Tamil Tigers, was about to wave a flag to start a marathon race when the bomb went off at the Kanthi playground in Weliveriya town of the district.

 

The minister, regarded as a potential prime minister in waiting, died of injuries sustained in the blast at a hospital, officials said.

 

Fernandopulle, who was a member of the Sri Lankan delegation, in the failed peace talks with the Tamil Tigers, has become the second minister to have been assassinated this year.

 

D M Dassanayake, Minister for Nation Building, was killed in a bomb blast in the same district on January 8, days after the government pulled out of a ceasefire with the Tamil Tigers. Television footage showed people screaming and running through the bloodied path after the powerful explosion went off near the minister as he addressed the athletes.

 

Condemning the attack as a "cowardly" act of the LTTE, President Mahinda Rajapaksa appealed for calm. "While calling on the people to be calm and collected in the face of such extreme provocation by the forces of terror, I wish to reiterate that this dastardly act will not weaken our resolve to eradicate terrorism from our midst, and bring peace, harmony and democracy to all our people, which was also the constant and unqualified wish of Jeyaraj Fernandopulle," he said in a statement.

 

K Sivanesan, an MP from pro-rebel Tamil National Alliance (TNA), was also killed in a roadside bomb attack this year for, which both government and LTTE blamed each other.

 

The fighting between the Sri Lankan security forces and the rebels has escalated in the island's embattled north since, the government pulled out of the Norwegian-brokered ceasefire.

 

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has been fighting for autonomy for minority Tamils in island's north and east. At least 70,000 people have died since, the war began in 1983.

 

Lanka's coach and Olympic marathon runner killed in attack. Official sources said 11 others, including former Olympic marathoner KA Karunaratne and national athletic coach Lakshman de Alwis, were also killed in the suicide blast.

 

 Karunaratne competed in the 1992 Olympic marathon and the 1993 World Championships. He won gold in the marathon and 10,000 meters at the 1991 South Asian Games, defending his marathon title in 1993.

 

Over 90 people, including Grampaha police Senior Superintendent Hector Darmasiri, were seriously injured in the blast and rushed to a local hospital, the Defence Ministry said, while blaming the Tamil Tiger rebels for the blast.